SEDL: Remain in My Love

Grace: Lord, teach me to remain in your love.

Scriptural Reading:

Jesus said to his disciples:

“As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.

“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy might be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another” (Jn 15:9-17).

Points for Reflection:

1. In the March of the Penguins, a stunning documentary movie about penguins in Antarctica, our attention is riveted on the self-sacrificing existence of adult penguins with their arduous 70-mile hikes and months without food to keep their young chicks alive. Their lives are given over in self-sacrifice for their young.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us of what the fullness of love consists: “To lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” He exemplifies this love in his own total gift of himself on the cross. He tells us to do likewise, “Love one another as I love you.” In the penguins of Antarctica, nature appears to mirror its self-giving Creator.

While most of us will fortunately not endure arduous hikes or long periods without food, it is vital for us to give of ourselves so that others may live. To love fully, whether married or single, is to give of one’s self. And this self-sacrifice nurtures life, in others and in us (by Fr. Stephen J. Rossetti).

2. Recall the moments wherein you were able to give yourself to others. As young parents, what had been an experience of giving of oneself to others (i.e. to Elijah); as newly married couples, how were you able to give yourself to him or her in ways new to you; as leaders in your fields of expertise, how were you able to give yourself to staffs or colleagues who can not level with you because they lack the capacity or the capability. Try to recall those moments.

3. Recall too the significant feelings that accompanied those experiences. Bring them to prayer.

4. Try to think of three ways wherein you can give yourself to others – to your spouse, to your child, to your officemates, to your clients, to your staff. Do it in a week’s time.

5. End with the prayer for generosity.


The picture was taken on top of the Osmeña's place in the city of Cebu. The child is a sister of one of the scholars of the AOS (Apostolate of the Sea) Center. Fr. Roland, AOS's chaplain, brought the scholar's family for a lunch treat for him to meet and know them better.